Starring:
Date: May 1st, 2010
Summary:
The kunoichi of Team Ruri hit the waves! Of a sort…
"Sand, Surf, and Snakes"
Outside Sunagakure
An interesting sort of mission has come down the pipes for Team Ruri. It seems that a notable zoologist is looking to obtain specimens of a rare life form, a pack of which is expected to pass by Sunagakure soon. This beast is called the Zephyr Krayt, and it's essentially a very large snake capable of burrowing through the loose desert sands at remarkable speed. The tricky part is, they instinctively follow after sand storms, preying on the creatures that are caught and buried in the rapidly shifting dunes. The zoologist wants several of these Krayts, with a bonus if one of them can be captured alive. Interestingly, the Kazekage has also offered the team a bonus if they can bag a live one for him as well.
Shemri feels pretty good on the whole about this mission. After all, it should make use of her skills as a huntress! n.n There's just one reservation she has about it: how are they supposed to hunt these things in the middle of a sandstorm!? Even Shemri, who has only been living in the desert for around half a decade, knows that desert sandstorms are extremely dangerous and movement in them is almost impossible. Fortunately, the mission document assures that the client has provided means for both surviving the storm and chasing the Krayts. So, Shemri heads on out to the rendezvous point outside Sunagakure to find out what these mysterious means are…
Kara is already at the meeting point, doing some warm-ups. "Hup! Hup!" She calls out as she jogs in place. "Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho! Heave-ho!" she calls out as she sways from left to right, stretching out her leg muscles in each leg. Etcetera. Finally she looks over to Pharaoh, who is all bundled up in bandages and not doing anything at all to prepare! So she heads over to him, and starts checking out his various devices and weapons and things, making sure they're all in working order.
When Shemri arrives, Kara turns and waves. "Hello, Shemri-san!"
A shemagh wasn't Rurohashi Rinako's first choice in outerwear for a mission of any kind, not by a long shot. But going out into furiously-blowing sand without one was just begging for a mouth, nose, ears, and hair full of tiny, irritating grains of sand. Having wrapped the cloth about her head and neck, as well as using bandages to cut off any loose portions of her clothing (the bottom of her shirt, sleeves, pants legs), Rinako now looked like the pin-up girl for desert survival.
Or Middle Eastern terrorism.
This, naturally, also caused her to complain about the mission a bit more.
"Ugh… snakes! Why /snakes/? Why couldn't it be something above ground? And why did it have to be /DESERT/ snakes! It's never /sea/ snakes. Never. Just /once/ I'd like to have a mission that let's a girl go for a swim."
No, Rinako was no huntress, and she certainly wasn't skilled at taking anything alive. Well, maybe if she wrestled one into submission. She was the hired muscle, the rapid attack dog of this femme fatale pack. Said attack dog gives the puppetteer a dour look, though her eyes are the only thing visible.
"Does she just find that kind of energy on the side of the road or something? I could still be napping…"
The slightly younger of the Rurohashi twins lurks behind Rinako at a distance. For once, she doesn't have anything to say about her sister's whining. It seems to have become common-place enough over the years that she feels no need to speak up unless it's REALLY irritating. Besides, she's not a spoil-sport, and she doesn't live for the sole purpose of making her sister miserable. If complaining makes Rinako happy, let her complain.
Ruri is dressed similarly to her sibling, but she has left her arms and shoulders bare. Her usual mix of scale-mail and fishnet has been replaced with wrapped white linen, kept tightly closed to keep out the sand. She has a number of tattoos on both arms by this point, but it doesn't seem as though there's any new ones. "What's wrong with snakes? We have one in our apartment." She nods to Shemri, then Kara, and then Pharaoh. She doesn't realize until after the fact that she has greeted a corpse. "…." Stupid puppets.
"Well… I wanted this to be a surprise…" she says, putting the matter of Pharaoh aside. "Rin-chan," she begins, putting a hand gently but firmly on Rinako's shoulder and trying to turn her around so that they can face each other. "I have something very important to ask." She takes one of Rinako's hands, and even through the face-wrap, a blush is evident on her cheeks. Getting down on one knee, Ruri keeps looking up at her sister as she pulls out a black box from a pouch on her belt. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. Is she really… Is she proposing to her own sister…!?
She thumbs open the lid of the box, as she asks, "Will you…" Ruri's eyes shimmer as she looks into Rinako's identical orbs. "…Go to the Land of Waves with me?" Inside the box are tickets for a ship to the Land of Waves. A LEISURE ship. Not quite a cruise ship, cause this is still the 1920s or whatever, but still. "I already have accommodations reserved for a hotel on the beach, too."
Shemri nods in response to Kara. "Greetings, Kara-san. It is good to see you are ready for action." The client grins. "Aye, that's the spirit, gals! Can't catch crittahs wi'out a liddle pep in y'step! Although, actually, we won't be doin' a lot of steppin' t'day, mostly ridin'." Shemri raises her eyebrows, as that sounded like a clue about their method of getting through the sandstorm…but Ruri seems to be doing something just a little more interesting. What could that be in the box…oh. Shemri smiles ruefully. "Ah. Aha. You must promise not to mention this in Megumi-chan's presence, she would get it into her head that she must come along." X)
The client starts pulling some large wooden contraptions from a nearby cleft in the cliff face. "The name's Wani Ryoushi, for those I haven't introduced meself to yet," he grunts, laying a long, slightly curved board in the sand. "I've asked for y'help t'day because this is more than a one-person job, and none of me regular assistants want to go. Can't blame 'em, what with the sandstorm /and/ the Krayts. Dangah, dangah, dangah." Ryoushi takes a long pole and fixes it into a hole in the middle of the board. "But, you ninja folk thrive on that, roight? I'm sorta the same way meself. People know me bettah for that than me discoveries, really. But, they probably still get more attention than they would if I /weren't/ such a yahoo, so it all works out in the end." Ryoushi finishes attaching a few more poles with a cloth sheet, and…there stands something like a wind-surfing board, with a wide, upturned end for skimming across the sands. "There now. You gals give that a look over while I get the rest of 'em assembled, let me know if you have any questions."
Kara blinks and watches as Ruri starts acting weird. When she gets down on one knee, Kara clasps her hands together in front of her chest and gasps. Then her eyes get all big and shiny and she makes a female noises of glee, as — to her vision at least — roses bloom from the sand and grow up in an arc, over the twin sisters, turning the whole scene into a pretty portrait picture of proposing! She keeps going, 'Ooo' and 'Aaah' as Ruri pulls out a black box. That must be the engagement ring! But then it is revealed to be just some tickets for a boat or something, and the roses immediately go up in flames. Kara's expression goes from '-^_^-' to '8<' in about two seconds flat, complete with blue-tinged skin, giant sweatdrop, and hitodama ghost-fires floating around her.
Next thing you know, Kara is down on her knees and hands in the sand, head hanging. "Uhhhhn…" she groans quietly. Then this disappears as a giant Kara looms up, surrounded by flames, as 'Night on Bald Mountain' plays in the background. Tears stream from giant-Kara's eyes as she clenches a fist and towers over the twins. "YOOOOOUUUU! HOW COULD YOU GET MY HOPES UP LIKE THAT! I WAS TOTALLY EXPECTING TO SEE A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL, AND THEN YOU TURN IT INTO SOME KIND OF… OF… VACATION PROPOSAL!?!"
Then the flames freeze and crumble as Kara starts weeping even more heavily, shrinking back down to normal size. "And I'll bet there's no tickets for the rest of us, are there…?" She sighs, as a little mushroom-cloud of breath puffs out of her mouth. "Well, I guess I better get ready to chase down some snakes…" she gets up and heads morosely over to the wind-surfing boards to examine them.
Pharaoh does absolutely nothing.
The elder twin turns readily enough at her sister's prompting, having failed to notice the nod at the puppet, thankfully. Else she'd likely have used it to tease her sister further about her necrophobia. She waits silently for her 'little' sister to ask her question, a puzzled frown evident by the crinkling of her brow as her hand is taken, which turns to something akin to alarm as Ruri begins to sink to one knee!
"Wha-Wha-Wha-Wha-…"
Swaying slightly on her feet, as if she might pass out from having forgotten something so fundamental as BREATHING, one dark-haired kunoichi's eyes lock onto the other's, a zen moment of connection between the two that's almost palpable in the air. And then comes… THE QUESTION!
"HELL YES, I'LL GO TO THE LAND OF WAVES WITH YOU!"
Bending down to grip her sibling by the shoulders, the stronger of the pair /yanks/ the younger into a vicious hug, bouncing up and down on her toes like a little girl that had just gotten her fifth birthday present. After several more moments of crushing her sister, she's then loomed over by the imposing visage of Angry-Crying Kara! If this were some kind of shounen production, Rinako would probably turn chibi and squeak out an apology. Instead, she backs up a step or two, holding up her hands, and squeaks out an apology!
"I-I'm sorry! It was her idea, kill /her/!"
Rubbing at the cloth covering the back of her head, she turns quickly towards their client and AWAY from disaster as he begins speaking. But she only eyes the wind-surf-board skeptically. "I am /so/ getting myself killed on that thing… Before my dream vacation! This guy really /is/ a yahoo."
Ruri grins, even when she's scooped up and hugged crushingly and bounced with. Maybe she can't breathe, but she has made her sister very happy, and that will have to be good enough for now. She starts to have some trouble staying conscious, and isn't sure if it's because of the lack of oxygen or just the joy of the situation. So she sort of dangles in Rinako's arms as Kara looms up suddenly and begins yelling at twin sisters for not getting married! Indeed, if this were a shounen production, her soul would be floating out of her mouth right about now as she is dropped suddenly. But instead, she just gets ahold of herself at about the same time she is dropped suddenly. "Ow," she ows as she starts breathing again, and gets up off the hot sand.
"What are you talking about!? Has all the fat of your brain gone to the fat of your chest!? I can't marry my sister!" She pauses, with one finger raised. She then glances to the side, finger folding down, as she thoughtfully looks in Rinako's direction. "Or can I?" she mutters to herself. That would be one way to keep any jerk boys from making her sibling miserable. Shaking her head to clear it of that idea, she just says, "And as a matter of fact, I DID get tickets for the rest of the team! But don't expect to be staying in our room, cause this is a birthday present for my sister, and it's not your birthday, Kara-chan! …or yours, Shemri-san."
Remembering that they're on a mission, Ruri hikes over to her board and starts examining it. "Hmmm… These probably require some degree of skill to use, right? How are we supposed to use them without any prior experience?" She frowns beneath her shemagh or whatever the heck it's called. "And… Uhh… How big are these Krayt things? They're not… Like… Dragons or anything, right?"
Shemri blinks at Kara's reaction, and a dull, straight-woman-of-the-act pall gathers around her…(or it would if this were a shounen production). "Eh? How could it have been a marriage proposal? They are sisters." :P Silly overdramatic pseudo-Egyptian. Shemri turns her attention back to the client. "Ah. Aha. These are…most interesting. Shiikaa, do you believe you can keep footing upon one of these?" Shiikaa steps onto the back of the assembled board, rocking his miniscule weight back and forth for a moment before giving a reassuring meow. Shemri steps on herself, gripping the controlling bar of the sail, and the contrivance begins to slowly slide downhill.
"It's easiah than it looks," Ryoushi assures Ruri while finishing assembly of another craft. "I'm sure you ninja ladies'll pick it up in no time. Besides, we'll have at least a few minutes to practice before we run into any Krayts. They tend t'stay close to the middle of the sandstorm. And no, I wouldn't call 'em dragons meself. They can get maybe thirty feet long, but that's a whoppah, and they're thin for snakes of that length, about as big around as y'fist. They have to be t'burrow through the sand as quick as they do." Ryoushi eyes the horizon, where the line between sand and sky has become very blurred. "Storm's almost here. Best get ready." And pretty soon everybody has a board ready to use.
Kara sniffs at Shemri. "You wouldn't understand! To see a romance between two people grow until it is ready to blossom into beautiful marriage is a wonderful thing! It is every girl's dream to find someone she can be that close to, who understands her and will protect her from the bad things in the world! Sister or not, I thought I was witness to such an event!" Then she crosses her arms and tilts her head to the side. "So… You know… That's why I was disappointed." The drama of her speech sort of leaks out of the air at that point.
Then she hears there are tickets for the rest of the team too. "OOOOOOO. Awesome! Thanks, Rinako-chan!" she calls to Ruri. Yes, she's just teasing. She makes this clear by winking. "Just kidding, Ruri-chan. You're great! Anyway, we better hurry with this mission so we can get going! I'll need to get some real swimsuits, and pack all kinds of things, and see if there's some kind of water-proofing that can be done for Pharaoh-kun, and see what kind of customs they have in the Land of Waves so I don't offend anyone, and…" she just keeps going on and on as she climbs onto the sand-surfing board with Pharaoh strapped to her back, and starts sliding downhill.
And here we thought that Rinako was supposed to be the motor mouth.
"Awwwwwww, but we already see them all the time at work! You're not supposed to vacation with co-workers!"
Tossing a glance over her shoulder as she lectures on proper vacationing etiquette a la Rinako, the elder twin pokes a finger uncertainly at the wind-board a few more times. Every time she looked the thing over, she became a bit less enthused about the entire idea, sure that this could only end with her legs sticking up out of the sand, and her face being eaten by an enormous worm-snake-thing.
"'Easy', he says. Easy to break my neck on!"
As she steps onto the board, her gaze is passed over towards the puppeteer, listening to her change subjects onto a different track with the expertise of a railroad engineer. She's opening her mouth to speak… just as her board begins to slide downhill after the others!
"Heeeeeeeeek!"
With a squeal of feminine dismay that she'd later deny ever having been capable of producing, Rinako hugs tightly onto the control bar and does her absolute best not to collide with anything, though her constant over-correcting has her almost-colliding with nearly EVERYONE at one point or another.
Ruri shrugs at Ryoushi and climbs on. "If I die, I'm holding you responsible, Ryoushi-san. I will haunt you, your family, your friends, your pets, and your descendants (theoretical or actual). I will drive you insane so that you stab your own brain with an icepick just to make the torment stop. I will gut your corpse and strangle every person who has ever even looked at you with your intestines." But that's all in her head. She may be a wrathful, spiteful young woman, but she also ATTEMPTS to be polite to people. Usually.
So instead she just nods and starts sliding down. When her sister nearly crashes into her, she yelps. "Hey! Be careful, Nee-chan! I don't want--" Her first impulse is to say she doesn't want to crash and die, but she makes an effort and changes it to, "--you to get hurt!" Yeah. That's totally what she meant to say originally. She's really making an effort to be nice to her sister for once. She then looks forward and realizes she's about to crash even without her sister doing anything. "AUGH!" she starts STEERING and manages to not slam into a tall sand dune that was in her way, instead skimming around it just barely. "--This is stupid!"
Shemri tilts her craft away as Rinako swerves near. "Hoi, learn some balance!" :P Honestly, what sort of ninja /doesn't/ have excellent balance? Never mind energy waves and mind manipulation and acting skills and all that other stuff Shemri doesn't happen to be good at, all that's just fluff. c.c Ryoushi laughs at the antics of the kunoichi. "Crikey, you lot sure know how to have a good time in y'work. Now when we find some of the snakes, try to get 'em near th'head. They may not look like much, but if they get enough of their length under th'sand, they can anchor themselves like a barnacle on a rock, maybe even pull ya undah a liddle. Don't let go of y'board, wotevah y'do, or the storm might bury you or y'board before y'get back on. Oh, and don't worry if y'get bit, they ain't got any need for venom."
The wind gradually picks up, tugging fitfully at the sails. Fortunately, as the speed of the wind-boards increases, so does their responsiveness. After a little while, Ryoushi glances back over his shoulder and grins. "All right, heah comes th'big stuff. Now we find out how these things hold up in a real blowah!" Shemri glances over sharply. "Hoi, you mean--" But before the obvious question can be completed, the sandstorm is upon them! Howling dry winds with a death rattle of sand yank the little craft into high velocity, and a light brown haze turns everything around into vague blobs of washed-out color. Before too long, though, a few lines of brilliant green become visible, popping out of the sand here and there. Apparently the Krayts have no need for camouflage either.
Kara has wrapped up her head with some bandages as she goes, apparently not having any trouble with her board. She's even steering with her >feet< and >humming< while she makes sure her head is secured against the sand! "…Wait, what? They can bite?" she calls out. "Well, that's no good. Here I thought that they had some kind of… Rake mouth or something. For eating sand. They do hang out in sandstorms after all, right? Obviously that means they eat sand!" She shrugs and finally puts her hands on the handlebars.
When they enter the storm, things go a bit nuts. The deafening howling prevents any further noise from reaching Kara's ears. She'll have to keep an eye out for hand-signs, but even using her eyes is dangerous in these circumstances. The sand is moving at pretty high velocity and could probably blind her at >least< temporarily.
Green snakes leaping through the sandstorms, huh? Well, they can't keep on the move >all< the time, because that would burn up energy like whoah. They'd always be on the brink of death. So maybe they can change their colors when there are no storms, in order to hide in the sand? Because seriously, bright green generally isn't a color that desert animals tend towards in their adaptations. Putting such musings aside, Kara tries to focus on steering under these extreme conditions. 'We only need two of them alive… So I guess I'll do the hard part first, before I get too tired to restrain them!' She dares to remove one hand form the bars and reach over her shoulder, grabbing one of Pharaoh's bandages and tugging. His head turns in place. If anyone could hear it, they'd realize that Pharaoh is producing a disturbing grinding and crackling noise like bones are grinding on bones and dried flesh is being stretch--Oh, wait, that's >exactly what's happening<. Ew.
Once Pharaoh is facing to the side, at the nearest of the snakes, Kara sends Chakra through her Chakra Strings and a stream of blood-like oil sprays from the Puppet's mouth, trying to nail the serpent and keep it in one place.
"D-Don't worry, I think I'm getting the hang of- WAAAAAAUGH!"
Leaning hard to the left, the dark-haired kunoichi manages to avoid crashing into a waist-high outcropping of barren rock, only to find herself now traveling rapidly /away/ from the group. With a frustrated grunt, she leans back the other way… only to cause her board to once more go onto a collision course with the piece of rock! A few more over-corrections, twisting and turning this way and that, has her avoiding the obstacle, but still veering a little off to the side of where she wanted to be. She figured it was close enough.
And then the storm's upon them. Thankfully, Rinako at least had the advantage of being able to shield herself, even her eyes, with her bijuu's chakra shield, which prevented her from having to squint and worry about getting sand in the delicate parts of her visual organs. /Un/fortunately, taking things alive wasn't exactly what she was suited for, unless she desired to leap from her board for an impromptu wrestling match. Given the serpent's lack of any appreciable joints, and environmental advantage, that wasn't an option she wanted to consider.
Reaching behind her belt, the kunoichi produces a long knife in her right hand, figuring that cutting a snake-throat or two would be her best bet. But steering with one hand makes her even more unstable than steering with both, and the best she can manage is a collision-course with one of the larger, more obvious ones, her knife-hand held out and ready to swipe near what she figured was the thing's head.
Unless they burrowed backwards or something.
Ruri has few options for catching a live snake. Much like her sister, she would be better off killing them. But she does have ONE thing she can use. She leans forward so that she can sort of steer with her left elbow instead of her left hand, and reaches across to activate a Flesh Scroll tattoo. It glows green, and then a length of rope with a snare on the end appears in her grasp. She starts swinging the rope around over her head, keeping the loop on the end spinning. It's almost like a lariat or something.
If anyone comments on her being a 'cowgirl' or 'snakegirl' or anything like that, she is going to punch them in the eye. Once she gets close enough, she counts off the seconds it takes for a nearby Krayt to dive and then emerge, waits for it to dive, and then lashes out with the rope, trying to put the snare right where the head will come out of the sand when it arcs upwards. If successful, she then pulls tight, causing the snare to close! Hopefully it's tight enough to keep the snake from going anywhere.
Shemri's training as a huntress kicks in as the others start going after the snakes, and she recalls something important: prey that dies in a place where it cannot be collected is worthless. In the current context, this means that a snake that is killed or immobilized and then passed by is as good as lostafter all, turning around in this driving storm would be a BAD idea. Hence, Shemri tacks left and right, using a zig-zag pattern to decrease her speed and fall behind the group. When Kara splatters one of the Krayts, Shemri steers in to intercept the sticky reptile. Crouching low on the board, she leans out to the side as much as she can and reaches out with her sash. She'll definitely have to spend a long time washing the thing later, but it works! The sash is wrapped securely around the snake's neck and its rope-like length is pulled from the sand to trail behind Shemri. Apparently Ryoushi had similar thinking, because he manages to swoop in and grab the decapitated remains of Rinako's target. And with the success of Ruri's lariat tactics, that's two live ones and a dissection specimen bagged already! Now if they can just manage a few more, it'll be
*SWOOOOSH*
Suddenly, something comes rising out of the dunes, causing a shower of sand all around. Something very large and very scaly and very GREEN. Ryoushi gives a whoop, regardless of whether anyone can hear him or not. "By Jingo, Souman was right after all! The Krayts /are/ just a larval form!" n.n If Ryoushi's pleased to meet the Big Momma Krayt, though, it doesn't seem pleased to meet the hunters. It lunges at Kara with jaws open wide, maybe not venomous, but with fangs plenty long enough to cause some very lethal stabby wounds.
Kara can't see so well, but she has other ways of 'seeing' the environment. Via Pharaoh's sensory utilities, Kara can detect the large source of Chakra behind her, even as it lunges. She doesn't have time to do much, so she just adjusts her course to try to steer out of the way. If she makes it out of the line of fire, then she lays down a line of fire herself! Pharaoh's mouth opens and a stream of fire jets forth, trying to strike the mature Krayt serpent and potentially convince it that this prey is not really prey after all.
With one down, the elder of the twin sisters figures she can probably get at least one more before she manages to pass through the entirety of the thick of them. If only she could get her board to cooperate a little bit better, that is! Wrenching the bar left and right, she does her best to navigate, trying to intercept first one snake, then another as they pop in and out of the sand. Her timing seems to be way off, for as soon as she approaches one, it's already diving into the sand!
"WHAT THE HELL /IS/ THAT!?"
Rinako's always had a set of lungs on her, but the howling wind and distortion of sound by the sand, not to mention the noise the krayts themselves make, likely drown her out as she stares back at the monster that was currently trying to eat their team mate. She's not paying attention so much that she almost clips one of the much smaller ones in the head!
Leaning harshly to the side and yanking on the control bar, the kunoichi tries to pull an abrupt u-turn to help, but mostly manages to upend her own board, causing it to spin a full three-sixty degrees in the air, before the wind begins buffeting her, albeit at a much more subdued pace, back along her original path.
"Ugh, don't do that again… KARA!"
Ruri drags the serpent behind her, unaware at first of the bigger snake that has appeared, until she feels the actual impact as it dives in and out of the ground. "…!#@&ing *@$&." she offers, though it goes unheard. She can't do much with one hand busy steering and the other hanging onto her captured snake. So she tries to steer with the hand holding the rope and make hand-signs with her other. 'OUT. OUT. OUT.' or something like that. She is frantically indicating they should get the fudge out of here very very fast like right now or maybe yesterday that's how fast.
She knows Kara's in trouble, but fighting in these conditions is really not advisable. And if it comes down to it… Losing a team member is less important than not completing the mission.—Wait, what the hell is she thinking? She only goes on missions to make the people of Sunagakure think she's loyal to the dumb Council and that bastard Kazekage. Well, screw them! She's getting out of here to save herself and her sister! But that doesn't mean she can't help Kara on the way out. Maybe Rinako is the most important of all, but friends are important too.
So she steers CLOSER to the Krayt mother and uses that free hand that was making handsigns to activate a Flesh Scroll tattoo… Not Stored Fire Stream. That might only anger this snake. She wants to make sure it just STOPS ATTACKING THEM. So instead she tries to use a defensive technique in an offensive manner. 'Stored Wall!' she thinks. And just like that a twelve-foot tall, twelve-foot long and one foot thick brick wall appears in the air, and hopefully lands either on the giant snake's head, or right in front of it.
The Big Krayt misses Kara and hits the sand. Despite its predatory roots as a snake, it's far more accustomed to going after targets that are at least partially buried and thus immobile. Moving targets, especially ones moving as fast as the sand-skiffs allow, are a problem for it. Kara's fiery attack strikes home, though it's somewhat diminished by all the sand in the air and it hits the body rather than the head. And when Ruri's walls thuds down in front of it's nose, that really takes the cake. Rocks from the sky? This is the strangest day in the serpent's long life. >.<;
Shemri follows after the others, heading for the side edge of the sandstorm. She chances a quick look behind; no sign of anything green, besides the baby Krayt still trailing from her sash. Suddenly, Shiikaa gives a panicked caterwaul and darts for the front of the board. Shemri follows him instinctively, and just in time. *KRACK!!!* The Mama Krayt's maw erupts from the sand behind Shemri and chomps down on her board. Apparently wood is one more thing it's not familiar with. Nevertheless, its action could prove indirectly deadly for Shemri and Shiikaa. They fly up in the air, managing to cling to the front end of the board with chakra, but without a sail they could lose their momentum and get buried in the shifting dunes! Oh noes! :o
Out! Out? Out! Rinako catches the hand signals being given by her sister, but the thought of leaving anyone behind in this horrid environment with evil, man-eating snakes for company was out of the question! She had a /duty/ to attend to, after all, to protect those she was teamed with, the village, and perhaps most importantly, their client.
Kara seems to have gotten out of the way, and Shemri is beyond their grasp. Ruri seems to be doing all right, and therefore that leaves only one remaining person that she was responsible for, coincidentally, the only one of the group who might not understand the hand-signals being given by the group leader. In a heroic effort to control her near-runaway windboard, Rinako yanks and tugs, leans and pulls until she's about as close as she can safely get to their client, to shield him in case that giant /thing/ began to come their way. Her voice raises to the peak of it's volume.
"COME ON, WE CAN'T FIGHT IN THIS! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! /GET/ /OUT/!"
Well, if tries to argue with her on this point, she'll just have to resort to hijacking his ride!
Ruri notices that Shemri and her cat have gone airborne. Well, she can't do much about that right now… Unless… She begins to swing the rope and snake around, and then lashes out, trying to give Shemri the snake's tail to hold onto. If this works, Ruri wastes no time in getting the spaz out of there! If it doesn't work, then, uhh… She may have just traumatized the snake and done nothing useful! Oh noes!
Despite his yahoo reputation, Ryoushi's not arguing with the whole let's-get-outta-here plan, though he is taking every opportunity to gawk at the giant serpent as they flee. "Crikey, wot a beaut! I'll have to plan anothah expedition out heah. Wondah if I could afford th'kinda ninja it'd take t'corral that'n?" Then comes the chomp. o.O Fortunately, it's Ruri to the rescue! Shemri grabs onto the snake tail passed to her and soon she and Shiikaa are being towed like wakeboarders! "Bonzah idea!" quips Ryoushi, slinging his own deceased specimen toward Shemri. With two snake-ropes to pull her, the slow-down on Ruri is lessened, as well as the straing on the poor lariated Krayt. x.x Which of these is more important to Ryoushi, none may ever know. ;) And the Big Momma Krayt is left in the dust, struggling to get the back half of Shemri's windboard out of its mouth.
Afterward, the mission is designated a success. Though Wani Ryoushi had been hoping for more specimens, he's happy enough that he got a live one and confirmed the existence of a beast he had thought mere legend and wishful speculation, and gave an extra bonus beyond what was promised. The Kazekage accepted the Krayt which was used to rescue Shemri, a bit bruised and muscle-stretched, but otherwise healthy enough. And best of all, the team got in plenty of practice for their visit to the Land of Waves! :D
